We're Here

From here on out, I'm going to write once a day, I promise.

Where to begin.....

Tuesday, June 10th:
Having packed up a majority of our belongings into piles of shapes on our living room floor, Kristin and I wake up tired but ready to finish up our preparations for Wednesdays move and to say goodbye to friends and loved ones one more time. What really begins is a 96 hour sleep-deprived marathon of moving and driving.

The day started off innocently enough. We ate breakfast, cleaned a bit in the morning and organized our stuff into 3 piles: Coming to Maine this trip, coming to Maine later, not coming to Maine at all. I regret it now that I did not take any pictures, because for 2 weeks and every moment up until we rolled out of my driveway on Wednesday morning, I was secretly (and not so secretly) fretting about the sheer amount of stuff we were expecting to pack into a Honda Civic and a Jeep Cherokee. Huge piles. Huge piles of awkwardly shaped, difficult to pack into vehicles things. Ironing boards, pillows, big boxes, little boxes, plastic boxes, backpacks, tents, laundry baskets, shoes, basketballs, suitcases, and a cat.

Around 11:30 Kristin and I went our separate ways in a rush. I left to hit the recycling center and to have lunch with my friends Sam and Matt. With Sam on a lunch break, I figured I'd be in and out in an hour, hour and a half tops. Back in time to get our shit together before we went insane. Is it a bad thing to want to hurry up a final goodbye? Even if we are moving for "only" 2 years (maybe), it feels like the end of an Era. The end of Annville Kurt. We've been best friends, in the elementary, middle and high school sense. Literally, we've known each other since 1st (Matt) and 5th (Sam) and have been a trio since high school. Sam has a serious girlfriend and Matt is a wandering spirit, so I'm not sure what life will be like in 2 years when/if we return to the area. I need to be better about keeping in touch with people, period. Anyway, that afternoon, I wasn't feeling too nostalgic, and hanging out w/ those guys never really is. No exchanges of sentimental gifts or hugs or whatever. Just a fun lunch discussing the days events, a little about the impending move, then a "well, see you later". Really, it felt more like I was leaving for a vacation, and I'd see those guys pretty soon again. In reality, I'm going to miss them quite a bit.

They've always been a constant: Sam the logical, pragmatist, playing to my little boy half. He wants to shoot guns, blow things up, talk/argue about philosophy, providing a rational eye (sometimes to a fault). A perfect foil for my cavalier side. Matt, on the other hand, the quiet and creative sage. Skilled with language and music. Blessed with a fantastic taste in the Arts. I could aways count on a cool, relaxed and reflective time hanging out with him. Obviously, I'm just generalizing, but between the three of us, I always felt we all fit on a continuum and that we worked pretty well.

Anyway, after our lunch and goodbye to Sam, Matt was gracious enough to drive me home so I could deal with taking motorcycle to my parents house after some errands. Kristin and I finally returned home around 4, leaving us 2 hours to deal with packing/cleaning until we went to dinner with my parents at 630, which would eat up another 3 hrs or so. Bottom line, we were really back in the saddle around 9 PM. Kristin was tired (and I'll point out here that Kristin did the majority of the packing and preparation for the move while I was working that last week. Thank you thank you thank you, darling. So she deserved a nap), so I didn't wake her when she nodded off to sleep while I started to pack up our cars. The plan was to pack up as much as we could in our cars, and her parents would be driving our mattress and sofa up in their pickup truck. Well, when Kristin woke up around 1030, I had the car packed and my jeep half packed, the bedroom still wasn't finished and the house looked like a disaster area. It wasn't until 330 that we gave up, resolving to come back in the morning to finish up. I got to bed around 415.

Wednesday, June 11th. D-Day:

At 6 I woke up and came back to the house at 7, finished the upstairs and cleaned the kitchen. Kris and her family arrived around 9 and we packed up the remaining and hit the road. For an 11 hr drive. On 2 hours of sleep. I ran on adrenaline and, really, it went very well. The weather was fantastic and the traffic light. We pulled into her Aunt's house near Portland early that evening and had a drink and some dinner and I promptly went to sleep. I really didn't think too much about what we're getting ourselves into. I had my hands full with driving and staying awake. I drank my first full cans of Red Bull.

I drove alone with only our cat, Jerry, for company, for most of the trip. He's an amazing cat who is more like a dog in a few ways. He loves being around people, he loves new people, he's insufferably curious (like most young cats) and plays fetch, and he has a chronic sinus infection. Anyway, I let him travel out of his cage for the duration, setting up a little Jerry condo in the front seat with some food, water and a shoebox litter box on floor. He slept most of the trip and caused no problems.

Thursday, June 12th:

Kristin's Aunt Deb was gracious enough to let us hang out for a day to recuperate. An interior decorator/designer, she and her husband live in this fantastic colonial home. It's so beautiful that it has been featured in numerous magazines, but i believe her kitchen is the best. Commercial grade gas burners. A huge viking commercial fridge. The stove vent is recycled from antique tin ceiling tiles. It's just awesome. I have an electric stove from 1989. Sigh..

The day was just what we needed, though. Aunt Deb is shutting down her design business due to an impending move back to PA, so she was super generous and let us pick out a few pieces of furniture (a set of dining room chairs, a convertible table, a leather lounge chair among other things) for our new place. It was much appreciated and much needed. The rest of the day was spent relaxing by her pool and drinking vodka tonics. Then I totally crashed at 930 and went to sleep.

Friday the 13th of June:

We woke up early to get on the road for the 3 hr drive up to Bangor. We spent the day cleaning and moving stuff in.